Swan Prince

“More times than not, when you come across a festival lineup you discover new acts, though it’s not all that often you go “hang on, these guys are pretty good”. Introducing Redditch punks, Swan Prince, who grabbed my attention when checking out the bill for Polite Riot Festival 2018. Just a year following their formation, this four-piece will be sharing the stage with skate punk icons, Teenage Bottlerocket, and after hearing their recently released EP, ‘Never Look Back’, I’m not surprised that such an opportunity has landed on them.

The term “female-fronted” has become tiresome and it feels lazy to compare Swan Prince to Tsunami Bomb or Tilt as two of the small amount of stand out female-fronted bands in skate punk, but it’s hard to ignore the comparisons of both bands blended together. Singing guitarist, Rachel Blewett delivers a chirpy tone in her voice that sparks life to opening song ‘Disguise’, which is borderline early 2000s pop-punk with its uplifting nature. Then songs like ‘Running on Empty’ and ‘The New Normal’ are a bit faster, packing a bit more punch with some crunchier riffs and harder hitting drum patterns, yet Blewett‘s somewhat softer voice balances it out with melodic vocal patterns.

This is the sort of EP that drives you down memory lane to your mid-teens listening to Warped Tour compilations and Punk-o-Rama CDs. It’s clear where the influences lay within the songwriting, there’s a catchy nature to Swan Prince, yet a sense of angst within them. The four-piece is on that fine line between the full blast energy of skate punk and the hooking value of pop-punk, pushing traits that would caters to punk fans that like fast music but love to sing along. It’s a nice little EP, a surprise perfect for summer and festival season.”
- Makky Hall, Broken Arrow Magazine